So why is it that retailers go out of their way to make the actual practice of buying crap so difficult? The shopping experience is littered with annoying practices and policies designed to turn even the most reasonable person into a shrieking puddle of rage. Here are six of the worst.

(Just to be clear, the people standing on the frontlines of this nonsense war are almost all just working stiffs following company policies. So when you come across any of these practices in the wild, please keep your shrieking rage puddles as tidy as possible. These people don't need your grief.)

#6. "Can I Help You With Something?"

You're reading jokes and facts on the Internet right now, so I'm going to assume you have at least a passing familiarity with being antisocial. Humans are kind of a pain to deal with, so when it's not necessary, why bother? This makes the phrase "Do you need any help with something?" the retail equivalent of hearing a cat dragged across a chalkboard. Honestly, who needs help finding things in the brightly lit store with excellent signage? Even if you did, it's not like help is difficult to find. You're all wearing uniforms, guys.

BlueMoon Stock/Getty ImagesAlthough different uniforms do make you more or less approachable.

I know sometimes this is a commission thing, salesmen trying to boost their monthly stats, but it's also common in stores where the staff doesn't work on commission. So why are they up in our grill?

The Reason:

It reduces shoplifting. Retailers can actually scare off some fraction of potential shoplifters just by letting them know that there are employees around with nothing better to do than approach strangers. That's why they go to this effort to try to "touch" every customer that walks into their store.

BlueMoon Stock/Getty ImagesNot literally.

#5. Your New Television Looks Terrible

Is your first instinct when shopping for a television to go to the store and look at all the televisions there? You know, the ones set up to be looked at? Well congratulations, moron, because little did you know that a television showroom is basically the worst possible environment for comparing televisions.

And sure enough, when you get your new, not-exactly-cheap television home, it looks all sorts of crappy, way worse than your friend's television. So what the heck?

The Reason:

First, each television in a store is typically set up to display the brightest, most garish picture possible, simply because that's what's the most eye-catching from a distance. All the finer details of the image get washed out, which are exactly the sort of details you might actually be trying to compare in a side-by-side test.

Zoonar RF/Zoonar/Getty Images"Well, Shrek looks brightest on this one, so I guess it's the best."

Second, although every television in a store will typically display the same movie, there's no guarantee that they're all receiving the same quality of signal. The distribution system feeding all those televisions is way more complicated than the 3-foot HDMI cable you'll be using at home and is often a jury-rigged mess of cables with all sorts of opportunities for poor connections and interference. You might end up ruling out a perfectly good television from your search simply because it's at the wrong end of the aisle.

Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images"No, see, this one just displays gray. That's not enough for me. I want one of the ones that can display Shrek."

#4. The Extended Warranty Upsell

So let's say you've picked out your expensive television incorrectly and are ringing it up at that weird little cash register they keep beside the televisions. While there, I can guarantee you'll have something quite similar to the following conversation:

"So, would you like the extended warranty on this television?"

"Why? Is it going to break?"

"Oh, probably not. But this will cover you if it does."

"Do they break a lot?"

"I saw one come in the other day that exploded this dude's whole family."

So why the hell at this, the most critical, money-exchangingest point in this whole process, would a retailer start talking up all the chances their product could break?

The Reason:

Because for the business selling them, extended warranties are surefire, risk-free investments, a crop of free money just waiting to be harvested off of people who don't understand math. Extended warranties are a form of insurance, and thanks to the power of nerds with spreadsheets, every piece of insurance is designed to, on average, cost the insured more money than they'll get in return.

ATIC12/iStock/Getty Images(thinking) "My family hates nerds."

The only reason you should ever buy insurance is to insure against a disaster that you couldn't possibly recover from on your own savings. House insurance or car insurance or health insurance, that kind of thing. Television insurance, when you call it "television insurance," sounds like exactly as dumb an idea as it is.